LETTERS ON THE MASONIC INSTITUTION.

BY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

PREFACE.

IT is now twenty years since there sprung up in the
United States an earnest and at times a vehement discussion, of the nature and
effect of the bond entered into by those citizens who join the society of Free
and Accepted Masons. The excitement which arose in consequence of the
disclosures then made, had the effect, at least for a time, if not permanently,
to check the farther spread of that association. The legislative power of some
of the States was invoked, and at last actually interposed, to prevent the
administration of extra-judicial oaths, including of course all such as were
constantly taken in the Masonic Order. This was the furthest point which the
opposition ever reached. It did not succeed in procuring the dissolution of the
organization of the Order, or even the repeal of the charters under which it had
a recognized existence in the social system. From the moment of the adoption of
a penal law, deemed strong enough to meet the most serious of the evils
complained of, the apprehension of further danger from Masonry began to subside.
At this day, the subject has ceased to be talked of. The attention of men has
been gradually diverted to other things, until at last it may be said, that few
persons are aware of the fact, provided it be not especially forced upon their
notice, that not only Freemasonry continues to exist, but also that other
associations partaking of its secret nature, if not of its unjustifiable
obligations, not merely live, but greatly flourish in the midst of them.

Fully aware of this state of things, a few private citizens who deeply
interested themselves in the investigation of the subject when first agitated,
yet feel as if their duty was not entirely performed so long as they shall have
left undone any act which in their estimation may have the effect of keeping up
among their countrymen a vigilant observation of the nature and tendency of
secret associations. Without cherishing the remotest desire, even if they could
be supposed to entertain the expectation, of reviving an old excitement, they
are nevertheless most anxious to put in a permanently accessible shape, some
clear and strong exposition of the evil attending similar ties, as that evil was
illustrated years ago in an examination of the Freemason's Oath. Such an
exposition they knew could be found in the writings of the Honorable John Quincy
Adams. But although the various papers in which it was first issued to the
public enjoyed an extensive circulation at the period when it was written, and
without doubt contributed much to the establishment of an improved state of
popular opinion, they are believed never to have been collected together in any
one form readily open to the public examination. This great deficiency, it
seemed to the gentlemen who have been already alluded to, a desirable object to
supply. They accordingly undertook the task of publishing the present volume,
not as a matter of sale, but solely with the intention of gratuitous
distribution. And first of all, they deemed it no more than proper to
communicate with Mr. Adams himself, and to get his opinion upon the subject.
That gentleman very cheerfully consented to aid the effort, not only by
supplying some entirely new documents, which have never before been printed, but
also by promising a recapitulation of his views in the shape of an Introductory
Essay. The execution of this last engagement has, however, been prevented by the
late much regretted illness which has befallen him. The task of preparing a
preface has, by this unexpected event, been made to fall into other hands, by
which it must be fulfilled in a far less comprehensive and satisfactory manner
than it would have been by him.

The Institution of Masonry was introduced into the British Colonies of North
America more than a hundred years ago. It went on slowly at first, but from the
time of the Revolution it spread more rapidly, until in the first quarter of the
present century it had succeeded in winding itself through all the departments
of the body politic in the United States, and in claiming the sanction of many
of the country's most distinguished men. Up to the year 1826 nothing occurred to
mar its progress or to interpose the smallest obstacle to its triumphant
success. So great had then become the confidence of the members in its power, as
to prompt the loud tone of gratulation in which some of its orators then
indulged at their pubic festivals, and among these none spoke more boldly than
Mr. Brainard, in the passage which will be found * quoted in the present volume.
He announced that Masonry was exercising its influence in the sacred desk, in
the legislative hall and on the bench of justice, but so little had the public
attention been directed to the truth he uttered, that the declaration passed
off, and was set down by the uninitiated rather as a flower of rhetoric with
which young speakers will sometimes magnify their topic, than as entitled to any
particularly serious notice. Neither would these memorable words have been
rescued from oblivion, if it had not happened that the very next year after they
were uttered was destined to furnish a most extraordinary illustration of their
significance.

In a small town situated in the western part of the State of New York, an
event occurred in the autumn of the year 1826, which roused the suspicions first
of the people living in the immediate neighborhood, and afterwards of a very
wide circle of persons throughout the United States. A citizen of Batavia
suddenly disappeared from his family, without giving the slightest warning.
Rumors were immediately circulated that he had run away; but there were
circumstances attending the act which favored the idea that personal violence
had been resorted to, although the precise authors of it could not be distinctly
traced. The name of the citizen who thus vanished as if the earth had opened and
swallowed him from sight, was William Morgan. He had been a man of little
consideration in the place, in which he had been but a short time resident.
Without wealth, for he was compelled to labor for the support of a young wife
and two infant children, and without influence of any kind, it seemed as if
there could be nothing in the history or the pursuits of the individual to make
him a shining mark of persecution, on any account. So unreasonable, if not
absurd, did the notion of the forcible abduction of such a man appear, that it
was at first met with a cold smile of utter incredulity. Among the floating
population of a newly settled country, the single fact of the departure of
persons having few ties to bind them to any particular spot, would scarcely
cause remark or lead to inquiry. Numbers, when first called to express an
opinion in the ease of Morgan, at once jumped to the conclusion that he
voluntarily fled to parts unknown. So natural was the inference that even to
this day, many who have never taken any trouble to look into the evidence, are
impressed with a vague notion that it is the proper solution of the difficulty.
In ordinary circumstances the thing might have passed off as a nine days'
wonder, and in a month's time the name of Morgan might have been forgotten in
Batavia, had it not been for a single clue which was left behind him, and which,
at first followed up from curiosity, soon excited wonder, and from this led to
astonishment at the nature of the discoveries that ensued.

The single clue which ultimately unwound the tangled skein of evidence was
this. The sole act of Morgan, whilst dwelling in Batavia, which formed any
exception to the ordinary habits of men in his walk of life, was an undertaking
into which he entered, in partnership with another person, to print and publish
a book. This book promised to contain a true account of certain ceremonies and
secret obligations taken by those who joined the society of Freemasons. The
simple announcement of the intention to print this work was known to have been
received by many of the persons in the vicinity, acknowledged brethren of the
Order, with signs of the most lively indignation. And as the thing went on to
execution, so many efforts were made to interrupt and to prevent it, even at the
hazard of much violence, that soon after the disappearance of the prime mover of
the plan, doubts began to spread in the community, whether there was not some
connection, in the way of cause and effect, between the proposed publication and
that event. Circumstances rapidly confirmed suspicion into belief, and belief
into certainty. At first the attention was concentrated upon the individuals of
the fraternity discovered to have been concerned in the taking off. It
afterwards spread itself so far as to embrace the action of the Lodges of the
region in which the deed was done. But such was the amount of resistance
experienced to efforts made to ferret out the perpetrators and bring them to
justice, that ultimately the whole organization of the Order became involved in
responsibility for the misdeeds of its members. The opposition made to
investigation only stimulated the passion to investigate. Unexampled efforts
were made to enlist the whole power of the social system in the pursuit of the
kidnappers, which were as steadily baffled by the superior activity of the
Masonic power. In time, it became plain, that the only effectual course would
be, to go if possible to the root of the evil, and to attack Masonry in its very
citadel of secret obligations.

The labor expended in the endeavor to suppress the publication of Morgan's
book, proved to have been lost. It came out just at the moment when the
disappearance of its author was most calculated to rouse the public curiosity to
its contents. On examination, it was found to contain what purported to be the
forms of Oaths taken by those who were admitted to the first three degrees of
Masonry,-the Entered Apprentice's, the Fellow Craft's and the Master Mason's. If
they really were what they pretended to be, then indeed was supplied a full
explanation of the motives that might have led to Morgan's disappearance. But
here was the first difficulty. Doubts were sedulously spread of their
genuineness. Morgan's want of social character was used with effect to bring the
whole volume into discredit. Neither is it perfectly certain that its
revelations would have been ultimately established as true, had not a
considerable number of the fraternity, stimulated by the consciousness of the
error which they had committed, voluntarily assembled at Leroy, a town in the
neighborhood of Batavia, and then and there, besides attesting the veracity of
Morgan's book, renounced all further connection with the society. One or two of
these persons subsequently made far more extended publications, in which they
opened all the mysteries of the Royal Arch, and of the Knight Templar's
libation, besides exposing in a clear light the whole complicated organization
of the Institution. Upon these disclosures the popular excitement spread over a
large part of the northern section of the Union. It crept into the political
divisions of the time. A party sprung up almost with the celerity of magic, the
end of whose exertions was to be the overthrow of Masonry. It soon carried
before it all the power of Western New York. It spread into the neighboring
States. It made its appearance in legislative assemblies, and there demanded
full and earnest investigations, not merely of the circumstances attending the
event which originated the excitement, but also of the nature of the obligations
which Masons had been in the habit of assuming. Great as was the effort to
resist this movement, and manifold the devices to escape the searching operation
proposed, it was found impossible directly to stem the tide of popular opinion.
Masons, who stubbornly adhered to the Order, were yet compelled under oath to
give their reluctant testimony to the truth of the disclosures that had been
made. The oaths of Masonry and the strange rites practiced simultaneously with
the assumption of them, were then found to be in substance what they had been
affirmed to be. The veil that hid the mystery was rent in twain, and there stood
the idol before the gaze of the multitude, in all the nakedness of its natural
deformity.

Strange though it may seem, it is nevertheless equally certain, that the most
revolting features of the obligation, the pledges subversive of all moral
distinctions, and the penalties for violating those pledges, were not those
things which roused the most general popular disapprobation. Here, as often
before, the shield of private character, earned by a life and conversation
without reproach, was interposed with effect to screen from censure men who
protested that when they swore to keep secret the crimes which their brethren
might have committed, provided they were revealed to them under the Masonic
sign, they did nothing which they deemed inconsistent with their duties as
Christians and as members of society. It is the tendency of mankind to mix with
all abstract reasoning, however pure and perfect, a great deal of the alloy of
human authority, to harden its nature. Multitudes preferred to believe the
Masonic oaths and penalties to be ceremonies, childish, ridiculous and
unmeaning, rather than to suppose them intrinsically and incurably vicious. They
refused to credit the fact that men whom they respected as citizens could have
made themselves parties to any promise whatsoever to do acts illegal, unjust and
wicked. Rather than go so far, they preferred to throw themselves into a state
of resolute unbelief of all that could be said against them. Hence the
extraordinary resistance to all projects of examination, that great wall of
brass which the conservative temper of society erects around acknowledged and
time-hallowed abuses. Hence the determination to credit the assurances of
interested witnesses, who seemed to have a character for veracity to support,
rather than by pressing investigation, to undermine the established edifice
constructed by the world's opinion.

Neither is there at bottom any want of good sense in this sluggish mode of
viewing all movements of reform. Agitation always portends more or less of risk
to society, and tends to bring mere authority into contempt. It is therefore not
without reason that those who value the security which they enjoy under existing
institutions, hesitate at adopting any rule of conduct which may materially
diminish it. Such hesitation is visible under all forms of government, but it is
no where more marked than in the United States, where the popular nature of the
institutions makes the tendency to change at all times imminent. The misfortune
attending this natural and pardonable conservative instinct is, that it clings
with indiscriminate tenacity to all that has been long established the evil as
well as the good, the abuses that have crept in equally with the useful and the
true. It was just so in the case of Masonry. A large number of the most active
and respected members of society had allowed themselves to become involved in
its obligations, and rather than voluntarily to confess the error they had
committed, and to sanction the overthrow of the Institution by a decided act of
surrender, they preferred to support it upon the strength of their present
character, and upon the combination of themselves and the friends whom they
could influence to resist the assaults of a reforming and purifying power. Great
as was the strength of this resistance, it could only partially succeed in
accomplishing the object at which it aimed. The opposition made to the admission
of a palpable moral truth, had its usual and natural effect to stimulate the
efforts of those who were pressing it upon the public attention. Admitting in
the fullest extent every thing that could be said in behalf of many of the
individuals, who as Masons became subjected to the vehemence of the
denunciations directed against the fraternity, it was yet a fact not a little
startling, that even they should deem themselves so far bound by unlawful
obligations as at no time to be ready to signify the smallest disapprobation of
their character, not even after the fact was proved how much of evil they had
caused. After the disclosures of the Morgan history, it was no longer possible
to pretend that the pledges were not actually construed in the sense which the
language plainly conveyed. That after admitting the possibility of such a
construction, the association which for one moment longer should give it
countenance, made itself responsible for all the crime which might become the
fruit of it, cannot be denied. Yet this reasoning did not appear to have the
weight to which it was fairly entitled, in deterring the respectable members of
the society from giving it their aid and countenance. DeWitt Clinton still
remained Grand Master of the Order after he had reason to know the extent to
which it had made itself accessory to the Morgan murder. Edward Livingston was
not ashamed publicly to declare his acceptance of the same office, although the
chain of evidence which traced that crime to the Masonic oath had then been made
completely visible to all. When the authority of such names as these was invoked
with success, to shelter the association from the effect of its own system, it
seemed to become an imperative duty on the part of those whose attention had
been aroused to the subject, to look beyond the barrier of authority so
sedulously erected in order to keep them out, to probe by a searching analytic
process the moral elements upon which the Institution claimed to rest, and to
concentrate the rays of truth and right reason upon those corrupt principles,
which if not effectively counteracted, seemed to threaten the very foundations
of justice in the social and moral system of America.

It was the province here marked out which Mr. Adams voluntarily assumed to
fill when he addressed to Colonel William L. Stone that series of letters upon
the Entered Apprentice's Oath, which will be found to make a part of the present
volume. Although this obligation may be considered as constituting the lowest
story and least commanding portion of the edifice of Freemasonry, yet he singled
it out for examination as the fairest test by which he could try the merits of
all that has been built above it. If that first and simplest step proved
untenable, it followed as a matter of course, that no later or more difficult
one could fare a whit better. Of the result of the investigation thus entered
into, it is thought that no difference of opinion can now be entertained. No
answer worthy of a moment's consideration was ever made. It is confidently
believed that none is possible. As a specimen of rigid moral analysis, the
letters must ever remain, not simply as evincing the peculiar powers of the
author's mind, but also as a standing testimony against the radical vice of the
secret Institution against which they were directed.

When the books of Morgan, and Allyn, and Bernard, the admissions of Colonel
Stone and of the Rhode Island legislative investigation, had left little of the
mysteries of Freemasonry unseen by the public eye, the impressions derived from
observation were curious and contradictory. Upon the first hasty and superficial
glance, a feeling might arise of surprise that the frivolity of its unmeaning
ceremonial, and the ridiculous substitution of its fictions for the sacred
history, should not have long ago discredited the thing in the minds of good and
sensible men every where. Yet upon a closer and more attentive examination, this
first feeling vanishes, and makes way for astonishment at the ingenious
contrivance displayed in the construction of the whole machine. A more perfect
agent for the devising and execution of conspiracies against church or state
could scarcely have been conceived. At the outer door stands the image of
secrecy, stimulating the passion of curiosity. And the world which habitually
takes the unknown to be sublime, could scarcely avoid inferring that the untold
mysteries which were supposed to have been transmitted undivulged to any
external ear, from generation to generation, must have in them some secret of
power richly worth the knowing. Here was the temptation to enter the portal. But
the unlucky wight, like him of the poet's hell, when once admitted within the
door, was doomed at the same moment to leave behind him all hope or expectation
of retreat. His mouth was immediately sealed by an obligation of secrecy,
imposed with all the solemnity that can be borrowed from the use of the forms of
religious worship. Nothing was left undone to magnify the effect of the scene
upon his imagination. High sounding titles, strange and startling modes of
procedure, terrific pledges and imprecations, and last, though not least, the
graduation of orders in an ascending scale, which like mirrors placed in long
vistas, had the effect of expanding the apparent range of vision almost to
infinitude, were all combined to rescue from ridicule and contempt the moment of
discovery of the insignificant secret actually disclosed. Having thus been
tempted by curiosity to advance, and being cut off by fear from retreat, there
came last of all the appearance of a sufficient infusion of religious and moral
and benevolent profession to furnish an ostensible cause for the construction of
a system so ponderous and complicate. The language of the Old Testament, the
history as well as the traditions of the Jews, and the resources of imagination,
are indiscriminately drawn upon to deck out a progressive series of initiating
ceremonies which would otherwise claim no attribute to save them from contempt.
Ashamed and afraid to go backwards, the novice suffers his love of the
marvelous, his dread of personal hazard, and his hope for more of the beautiful
and the true than has yet been doled out to him, to lead him on until he finds
himself crawling under the living arch, or committing the folly of the fifth
libation. He then too late discovers himself to have been fitting for the
condition either of a dupe or of a conspirator. He has plunged himself
needlessly into an abyss of obligations which, if they signify little, prove him
to have been a fool; and if, on the contrary, they signify much, prove him ready
at a moment's warning, to make himself a villain.

Such is the impression of the Masonic Institution that must be gathered from
all the expositions that have been lately made. Yet, strange though it may seem,
there is no reason to doubt that the Society has had great success in enrolling
numbers of persons in many countries among its members, and in keeping them
generally faithful to the obligations which it imposed. This, if no other fact,
would be sufficient to relieve the whole machine from the burden of ridicule it
might otherwise be made to bear. Perhaps the strongest feature of the
association is to be found in the pledge it imposes of mutual assistance in
distress. On this account much merit has been claimed to it, and many stories
have been circulated of the benefits which individuals have experienced in war,
or in perils by sea and land, or in other disasters, by the ability to resort to
the grand hailing sign. This argument, which has probably made more Freemasons
than any other, would be good in its defense were it not for two objections. One
of them is, that the pledge to assist is indiscriminate, making little or no
difference between the good or bad nature of the actions to promote which a
co-operation may be invoked. The other is, that the engagement implies a duty of
preference of one member of society to the disadvantage of another who may be in
all respects his superior. It establishes a standard of merit conflicting with
that established by the Christian or the social system, either or both of which
ought to be of paramount obligation. And this injurious preference is the more
dangerous because it may be carried on without the knowledge of the sufferers.
The more scrupulously conscientious a citizen may be, who hesitates at taking an
oath the nature of which he does not know beforehand, the more likely will he be
to be kept down by the artificial advancement of others who may derive their
advantage from a cunning use of their more flexible sense of right. That these
are not altogether imaginary objections, there is no small amount of actual
evidence to prove. There has been a time, when resort to Masonry was regarded as
eminently favorable to early success in life; and there have been men whose
rapidity of personal and political advancement it would be difficult to explain
by any other cause than this, that they have been generally understood to be
bright Masons. Such a preference as is here supposed, can be justifiable only
upon the supposition that Masonic merit and social merit rest on the same
general foundation;-a supposition which no person will be able to entertain for
a moment after he shall have observed the scales which belong respectively to
each.

Another argument which has been effectively resorted to as an aid to
Freemasonry, is drawn from its supposed antiquity. To give color to this notion,
a very ingenious use has been made of much of the sacred history; but it appears
to have no solid foundation whatsoever. Whatever may have been the nature of the
associations of Masons who built the gothic edifices of the middle ages, the
investigations entered into by those who opposed speculative Freemasonry
sufficiently proved that the latter scarcely dates beyond the early part of the
last century. The air of traditionary mystery like the aerugo on many a
pretended coin, has been artificially added to heighten its value to the
curious. Yet such has been its effect, that this cause alone has probably
contributed very largely to fill up the ranks of the Society. The rapidity of
its growth during the period of its legitimate existence, is one of the most
surprising circumstances attending its history. Originating in Great Britain
somewhere about the beginning of the eighteenth century, it soon ramified not
only in that country, but into France and Germany; it spread itself into the
colonies of North America, and made its way to the confines of distant Asia.
Although the seeds of the Institution were early planted in Boston and
Charleston, they did not fructify largely until after the period of the
Revolution. The original form of Masonry was comprised in what are now called
the first three degrees-the entered apprentice, fellow craft and master-but
during the first quarter of the present century, so thoroughly had the basis
been laid over the entire surface of the United States, that the degrees have
been multiplied more than tenfold, and in all directions the materials have been
collected for a secret combination of the most formidable character. It was not
until the history of Morgan laid open the consequences of the abuse of the
system, that the public began to form a conception of the dangerous fanaticism
which it was cherishing in its bosom. Even then, the endeavor to apply effective
remedies to the evil was met with the most energetic and concerted resistance,
and the result of the struggle was by no means a decided victory to the
opponents of the Institution. Freemasonry still lives and moves and has a being,
even in New York and Massachusetts. And at the seat of the Federal government,
Freemasonry at this moment claims and obtains the privilege of laying the
corner-stone of the national institution created upon the endowment of James
Smithson, for the purpose of increasing and diffusing knowledge among men.

An obvious danger attending all associations of men connected by secret
obligations, springs from their susceptibility to abuse in being converted into
engines for the overthrow or the control of established governments. So soon was
the apprehension of this excited in Europe by Freemasonry, that many of the
absolute monarchies took early measures to guard against its spread within their
limits. Rome, Naples, Portugal, Spain and Russia made participation in it a
capital offense. Other governments more cautiously confined themselves to
efforts to control it by a rigid system of supervision. in Great Britain, the
endeavor of government has been to neutralize its power to harm, by entering
into it and by placing trust worthy members of the royal family at its head. Yet
even with all these precautions and prohibitions, it is believed that in France
at the period of the revolution, and in Italy within the present century, much
of the insurrectionary spirit of the time was fostered, if not in Masonic
Lodges, at least in associations bearing a close affinity to them in all
essential particulars. With regard to the United States, there has thus far in
their history been very little to justify any of the most serious objections
which may be made against Masonry in connection with political affairs. Yet the
events which followed the death of Morgan, first opened the public mind to the
idea that already a secret influence pervaded all parts of the body politic,
with which it was not very safe for an individual to come into conflict. The
boast of Brainard, already alluded to, was now brought to mind. It was found to
bias, if not to control, the action of officers of justice of every grade, to
affect the policy of legislative bodies, and even to paralyze the energy of the
executive head. This power, by gaining a greater appearance of magnitude from
the mystery with which it was surrounded, was doubtless much exaggerated by the
popular fancy during the period of the Morgan excitement; but after making all
proper allowances, it is impossible from a fair survey of the evidence to doubt
that it was something real, and that it might, in course of time, have
established an undisputed control over the affairs of the Union, had not its
progress been somewhat roughly broken by the consequences of the violent
movement against Morgan, which had its origin in the precipitate but fanatical
energy of one division of the society. And even since the agitation of that day,
there is the best reason for believing that throughout the region most affected
by it, an organization was made up after the fashion of Masonic Lodges, the
object of which was directly to stimulate a concerted insurrection against the
governing power of a neighboring country, Canada, calculated to give rise to a
furious contest with a foreign nation, and to mature plans by which such an
attempt could be most effectually aided by citizens of the United States in
spite of all the national declarations of neutrality and in defiance of all the
fulminations of government at home.

But at the time of Morgan's mysterious disappearance, the investigations then
pursued, imperfect as they were, and more than once completely baffled for the
moment, brought forth the names of sixty-nine different individuals, many of
them of great respectability of private character, who had been directly
concerned in the outrages attending his taking off. These sixty-nine persons
were not living within a confined circle. They had their homes scattered along
an extent of country of at least one hundred miles. That so many men, at so many
separate points, should have acted in perfect concert in such a business as they
were engaged in, would scarcely be believed, without compelling the inference of
some distinct understanding existing between them. That they should have carried
into effect the most difficult part of their undertaking, a scheme of the most
daring and criminal nature, in the midst of a large, intelligent and active
population, without thereby incurring the risk of a full conviction of their
guilt and the consequent punishment, would be equally incredible, but for the
light furnished by the phraseology of the Masonic oath. The several forms of
this oath, as shown to have been habitually administered in the first three
degrees, will be found in the Appendix to the present volume. These, together
with the ceremony attending the Royal Arch and the Knight Templar's obligation,
have been deemed all of Masonry that is necessary to illustrate the letters of
Mr. Adams. They are believed sufficient to account for the successful manner in
which Morgan was spirited away. It is not deemed expedient to dwell here upon
their nature, when it will be found fully analyzed in the body of the present
volume. It is enough to point out the fact that obedience to the Order is the
paramount law of association; that it makes every social, civil and moral duty a
matter of secondary consideration; that it draws few distinctions between the
character of the acts that may be required to be done, and that it demands
fidelity to guilt just the same as if it were the purest innocence. Every man
who takes a Masonic oath, forbids himself from divulging any criminal act,
unless it might be murder or treason, that may be communicated to him under the
seal of the fraternal bond, even though such concealment were to prove a burden
upon his conscience and a violation of his bounden duty to society and to his
God. The best man in the world, put in this situation, may be compelled to take
his election between perjury on the one side and sympathy with crime on the
other. The worst man in the world put in this situation has it in his power to
claim that the best shall degrade his moral sense down to the level of his own,
by hearing from him, without resentment, revelations to which even listening may
be a participation of dishonor.

The facts attending the abduction of Morgan, not elicited without the most
extraordinary difficulty by subsequent investigation, have been so often
published far and wide as to make it superfluous here to repeat them. It may be
enough to state, that from the day when the partnership between Morgan and David
C. Miller, a printer of Batavia, made for the purpose of publishing the
"Illustrations of Masonry," was announced, no form of annoyance which could be
expected to deter them from prosecuting their design, was left un-attempted. The
precise nature of these forms may be better understood, if we class them under
general heads, until they took the ultimate shape of aggravated crime.

1. Anonymous denunciation of the man Morgan, as an impostor, in newspapers
published at Canandaigua, Batavia and Black Rock, places at some distance from
each other, but all within the limits of the region in which the subsequent acts
of violence were committed.

2. Abuse of the forms of law, by the hunting up of small debts or civil
offenses with which to carry on vexatious suits or prosecutions against the two
persons heretofore named.

3. The introduction of a spy into their counsels, and of a traitor to their
confidence, employed for the purpose of betraying the manuscripts of the
proposed work to the Masonic Lodges, and thus of frustrating the entire scheme.

4. Attempts to surprise the printing office by a concerted night attack of
men gathered from various points, assembling at a specific rendezvous, the abode
of a high member of the Order, and proceeding in order to the execution of the
object, which was the forcible seizure of the manuscripts and the destruction of
the press used to print them.

5. Efforts to get possession of the persons of the two offenders, by a resort
to the processes of law, through the connivance and co-operation of officers of
justice, themselves Masons. These efforts failed in the case of Miller, but they
succeeded against Morgan, and were the means by which all the subsequent
movements were carried into execution.

6. The employment of an agent secretly to prepare materials for the
combustion of the building which contained the printing materials known to be
employed in the publication of the book, and to set them on fire

Such were the proceedings which were resorted to at the very outset of this
conspiracy, and upon looking at them, it will be seen at a glance that the
prosecution of them involved the commission of a variety of moral and social
offenses, the commission of which may be fairly included within the literal
injunction of the Masonic oath. Had the matter stopped here, it would have
furnished abundance of evidence to establish the dangerous character of a secret
Institution, when its interests are deemed to conflict with those of individual
citizens or of society at large. But what has thus far been compressed in the
six preceding heads, appears as nothing when compared with the startling
developments of the remainder of the story.

On Sunday, of all the days in the week, the tenth of September, 1826, the
coroner of the county of Ontario, himself Master of the Lodge at Canandaigua,
applied to a Masonic justice of the peace of that town for a warrant to
apprehend William Morgan, living fifty miles off at Batavia. The offense upon
which the application was based was larceny, and the alleged larceny consisted
in the neglect of Morgan to return a shirt and cravat that had been borrowed by
him in the previous month of May. Armed with this implement of justice, which
assumes in this connection the semblance of a dagger rather than of its ordinary
attribute a sword, the coroner immediately proceeded in a carriage obtained at
the public cost, to pick up at different stations along the road of fifty miles,
ten Masonic brethren, including a constable, anxious and willing to share in
avenging the insulted majesty of the law. At the tavern of James Ganson, six
miles from Batavia, the same place which had been the head quarters of the night
expedition against Miller's printing office, the party stopped for the night.
Had that expedition proved successful, it is very probable that this one would
have been abandoned. As it was, the failure acted as a stimulus to its further
prosecution. Early next morning, five of the Masonic beagles, headed by the
Masonic constable, having previously procured a necessary endorsement of their
writ to give it effect in the county of Genessee, from a Masonic justice of the
peace, proceeded from Ganson's house to Batavia, where they succeeded in seizing
and securing the man guilty of the alleged enormity touching the borrowed shirt
and cravat. A coach was again employed, the Masonic party lost no time in
securing their prey, and at about sunset of the same day with the arrest, that
is, Monday the eleventh day of September, they got back to Canandaigua. The
prisoner was immediately taken before the justice who had issued the warrant,
the futility of the complaint was established, and Morgan was forthwith
discharged. The case affords a striking illustration of the abuse of the
remedial process of the law to the more secure commission of an offense against
law. Morgan was free, it is true, but he was at a distance of fifty miles from
home, alone and without friends, brought through the country with the stigma
resulting from the suspicion of a criminal offense attached to him, and all
without expense to the parties engaged in the undertaking, as well as without
the smallest hazard of a rescue.

It turned out that the person of whom the shirt and cravat had been
originally borrowed, had never sought to instigate a prosecution for the
offense. The idea originated in the mind of the Masonic coroner himself. He had
executed the plan of using the law to punish an offense of Masonry, to the
extent to which it had now been carried. Morgan had been brought within the coil
of the serpent, but he was not yet entirely at its mercy. Another abuse of legal
forms yet remained to complete the operation. No sooner was the victim landed
upon the pavement, exonerated from the charge of being a thief, than he found
the same Masonic Grand Master and coroner tapping him on the shoulder, armed
with a writ for a debt of two dollars to a tavern keeper of Canandaigua.
Resistance was useless. Morgan had neither money nor credit, and for the want of
them he was taken to the county jail. The common property and the remedial
process of the State was thus once more employed to subserve the vindictive
purposes of a secret society.

Twenty-four hours were suffered to pass, whilst the necessary arrangements
were maturing to complete the remainder of the terrible drama. On the evening of
the succeeding day, being the twelfth of September, the same Grand Master
coroner once more made his appearance at the prison. After some little
negotiation, Morgan is once more released by the payment of the debt for which
he had been taken. But he is not free. No sooner is he treading the soil of
freedom, and perchance dreaming of escape from all these annoyances, than upon a
given signal, a yellow carriage and gray horses are seen by the bright moonlight
rolling with extraordinary rapidity towards the jail. A few minutes pass, Morgan
has been seized and gagged and bound and thrown into the carriage, which is now
seen well filled with men, rolling as rapidly as before but in a contrary
direction. Morgan is now completely in the power of his enemies. The veil of law
is now removed. All that remains to be done is to use the arm of the flesh.
Morgan is taking his last look of the town of Canandaigua.

It is a fact that this carriage moved along night and day, over a hundred
miles of well settled country, with fresh horses to draw it supplied at six
different places, and with corresponding changes of men to carry on the
enterprise, and not the smallest let or impediment was experienced. With but a
single exception, every individual concerned in it was a Freemason, bound by the
secret tie; and the exception was immediately initiated by a unanimous vote of
the Lodge at Lewiston. It afterwards appeared in evidence that the Lodge at
Buffalo had been called to deliberate upon it, and moreover that the Lodges at
Le Roy, Bethany, Covington and Lockport, as well as the Chapter at Rochester,
had all of them consulted upon it. There is no other way to account for the
preparation made along the line of the road traveled by the party. Nowhere was
there delay, or hesitation, or explanation, or discussion. Every thing went on
like clock-work, up to the hour of the evening of the fourteenth of September,
when the prisoner was taken from the carriage at Fort Niagara, an unoccupied
military post near the mouth of the river of that name, and lodged in the place
originally designed for a powder magazine, when the position had been occupied
by the troops of the United States. The jurisdiction was now changed from that
of the State to that of the federal government, but the power that held the man
was one and the same. It was Masonry that opened the gates of the Fort, by
controlling the will of the brother who for the time had it entrusted to his
charge.

On this same evening, there was appointed to take place at the neighboring
town of Lewiston, an installation of a Chapter, misnamed Benevolent, at which
the arch conspirator was to be made Grand High Priest, and an opportunity was
given to all associates from distant points to come together and to consult upon
what it was best to do next. Here it is, that in spite of the untiring labors of
an investigating committee organized for the purpose, and in spite of the entire
application of the force of the courts of the country to the eliciting of the
truth, the details of the affair which thus far have been clearly exposed, begin
to grow dim and shadowy. There is reason to believe that Morgan was carried
across the river in a boat at night, and placed at the disposal of a Canadian
lodge at Newark. The scruples of one or two brethren who hesitated at the idea
of murder, brought on a refusal to assume the trust. Consultations on this side
of the river followed, and messengers were dispatched to Rochester for advice.
The final determination was, that Morgan must die, to pay the penalty of his
violated oath. After this, every thing attending the catastrophe becomes more
and more uncertain. It is affirmed that eight Masons met and threw into a hat as
many lots, three of which only were marked. Each man then drew a lot, and where
it was not a marked lot, he went immediately home. There is reason to believe
that the three who remained, were the persons who, on the night of the 19th or
20th of September, took their victim from the fort, where he had been kept for
sacrifice, carried him in a boat to the middle of the stream, and having
fastened upon him a heavy weight, precipitated him into eternity.

Such is a condensed statement of this eventful history -a history which in
many of its details will vie in interest with any narrative of romance. That
such a tragedy could be executed in the United States, a country fortified as
the people fondly imagine by all known securities to life and liberty; that it
could be carried on through a period of ten days, in a populous Christian
community, without thought of rescue; that it could enlist as actors so large a
number of citizens of good repute in so many different quarters as were members
of the various lodges privy to the transaction; and finally, that it could
secure the co-operation of the chosen ministers of justice, and even of some set
apart to the service of the Deity, one of whom could be found bold enough to
invoke the blessing of God upon the contemplated violation of his most solemn
law; that it could involve all these possibilities, was a thing well calculated
to rouse the human mind to a high pitch of wonder, until the problem found its
natural solution in the disclosure of the Masonic oath. Construed as this
Obligation was construed by the members of the order in Western New York, all
cause of surprise at the consequences instantly disappears.

Yet strange as is this narrative, fearful as is the disclosure of the
fanaticism of secret association which could impel men-holding a respectable
rank in society, walking by the light of modern civilization, acknowledging the
influence of Christianity over their daily life-to the commission of outrages so
flagrant as were the abduction and murder of William Morgan, it would not of
itself have sufficed to justify attaching even a suspicion to the entire
institution of Freemasonry in the United States, or even to any considerable
branch of it existing without the limits of the region where the events
happened. Whatever might have been the private sentiments entertained of the
danger attending the assumption of secret obligations, the exact nature of these
was at the outset too little understood to sanction the inference that they
allowed criminal enterprises. Extensive as the conspiracy against Morgan and
Miller appeared to be, yet similar things have been done under the influence of
passion and in open and acknowledged violation of moral and religious duty, in
all stages of the world's progress. It was hence no unreasonable thing to
conclude that it might have happened once more. Censure was to be directed, if
any where, against those over-zealous members of the order who could be believed
to have overstepped the bounds of reason and of justice, acknowledged as well by
the law of the fraternity as by the higher one of God and of civil society. It
was reserved for events coming somewhat later, to develop the fact, that in the
instance of Morgan, Freemasons, so far from thinking themselves to be violating,
were literally following the injunction which they felt to be laid upon them in
their oaths. The law of Masonry was to them more than that of civil government
or of the Deity, even when it was known directly to conflict with them. It was
the truth of this proposition, slowly and gradually wrested from the lips of
adhering members, that turned the current of popular indignation from the guilty
individuals towards the Institution itself. It was the proof furnished of this
truth, which created the moral power of the political party that soon sprung up
in New York and Pennsylvania and that under the banner of opposition to all
secret societies rallied its tens of thousands in a fierce and vindictive, and
at times, even a fanatical persecution of every thing that bore even the
semblance of dreaded Freemasonry.

It would be tedious to recapitulate all the particulars of the evidence which
ultimately fastened upon the public mind a conviction of the reality of the
proposition above named. It may be sufficient to state the manner in which the
powerful efforts made to discover the guilty parties and to bring them to
justice, were perpetually baffled. The first and most natural impulse operating
upon those who united in an endeavor to maintain the law, was to look to the
Chief Executive Magistrate of New York for energetic support. The person who
held that office at the moment, was no less distinguished man than the
celebrated De Witt Clinton. But he was at the same time a Freemason, and what is
more, he was High Priest of the General Grand Chapter of the United States, in
other words, the highest officer of the Order. The fact was known throughout the
region of Western New York, and was unquestionably relied upon as a protection
from danger by those who were concerned in the deeds of violence. Indeed it
afterwards came out, that what purported to be a letter from him was freely used
for the purpose of instigating the members of the Order to prosecute their
schemes. There are many living who yet suspect that the letter was actually
genuine; but that suspicion is believed to be unjust to the memory of the late
Governor Clinton, who did what he could, as soon as he became apprised of the
character of the offense, to bring the guilty to punishment. The fact however
furnishes an instructive illustration of the great danger attending the
existence of secret ties, which may even be suspected to conflict in the mind of
a high officer of state with the performance of his public duties. The moral
influence of his situation was thus wholly lost upon men who believed, that
whatever he might say in public to the contrary, his sympathies were all with
them; who supposed that his private obligations to conceal and never to reveal
the secrets of his brother Masons, as well as to aid and assist in extricating
them from any difficulty in which they might become involved, might be depended
upon, at least so far as to shelter them from the legal consequences of their
own misdeeds, within the sphere of the Executive influence. Was this an
inference wholly unwarranted from the language of the Masonic oath? Let any
impartial individual examine its nature and answer affirmatively if he can.
Doubtless De Witt Clinton was wholly innocent of guilt, but his situation was
not the less clearly one of conflict between his Masonic and his social and
religious duty. Although he may have escaped contamination, another and weaker
individual might have made himself accessory to the crime. At all events, it
must be conceded that the situation in which he was thrown, was one not
unnaturally the consequence of his assumption of conflicting obligations, and
one in which no high civil officer under any government should ever be suffered
to stand.

The second manifestation of the force of the Masonic obligation was made
visible in the courts of justice, which are established to try persons charged
with the commission of offenses against human life or liberty. The sheriffs,
whose duty it was under the laws of New York to select and summon the grand
juries, were, in all the counties in which the deeds of violence against Morgan
had been committed, Freemasons. Several of them had themselves been parties to
the crime. They did not hesitate to make use of their power as officers of
justice to screen the criminals from conviction. The jurors whom they summoned
were most of them Masons, some of them participators in the offenses into which
it became their civil duty to inquire. The consequence may readily be imagined.
Money, time and talent were expended in profusion, for the purpose of bringing
the perpetrators of the crime complained of to condign punishment; but almost in
vain. Some of the suspected persons were found and put upon their trial; but the
secret obligation prevailed in the jury box, and uniformly rescued them in the
moment of their utmost need. Others vanished from the scene and eluded pursuit
even to the farthest limits of the United States. One man, and probably the most
guilty, was tracked to the bosom of a Lodge in the city of New York, by the
members of which he was secreted, put on board of a vessel below the harbor, and
dispatched to a foreign land. Five years were consumed in unavailing efforts to
obtain a legal conviction of the various offenders. Nothing that deserves the
name of a true verdict followed. Such a history of deeply studied, skillfully
combined and successfully executed movements to set at naught the lawfully
constituted tribunals of justice, has at no other time been made evident in
America. Important witnesses were carried off at the moment when their evidence
was indispensable, and placed beyond the jurisdiction of the State; or if
present and interrogated, they stood doggedly mute; or else they placed
themselves entirely under the guidance of legal advisers employed to protect
them from criminating themselves. It was made plain to the most ordinary
capacity that the Order was assuming the responsibility of the crime of some of
its members. It was exerting itself to throw over the guilty, the protecting
garb of the innocent. The obligation of Freemasonry was then the law paramount,
and the social system sunk into nothing by the side of it. Even distant Lodges
responded favorably to the call made upon them to aid in the defense of the
endangered brethren, by actually voting and forwarding sums of money for their
relief. And the brief and insignificant period of imprisonment which two or
three of them paid as a penalty for comparatively light offenses, was spent by
them in receiving the sympathy of a martyr's fate. The end of all was, that for
the first time Masonry enjoyed its complete triumph. The men who actually
participated in the murder have gradually dropped off, until it may be said that
not a single individual remains within the United States. But they lived and
died secure from every danger of legal punishment. The oath of Masonry came in
conflict with the duty to society and to God, and succeeded in setting it aside.

The ends of justice were defeated; but the labors of those indefatigable
persons who had striven day and night to promote them, were not altogether
thrown away. The materials were collected to show to the world the chain of
connection woven by the Masonic obligations between the subordinate Lodges in
Western New York and the higher authorities of the East. The popular attention
was turned to every Masonic movement-not solely in the State in which had been
the cause of offense, but in all of the neighboring States. Extraordinary powers
to pursue the investigations to its source were demanded of various legislative
bodies, and the treatment of these applications elicited the fact that
Freemasonry exercised a power almost as great in the deliberative assemblies as
in the executive council chamber, or in the jury box of the courts. The
opposition to Masonry became gradually more and more intensely political, and in
the process took up an aspect of extreme and illiberal vindictiveness towards
all who ventured to stay its progress. The other parties were compelled to bend
to the force of the blast that was sweeping over them. The revelations made by
Morgan, in the book which cost him his life, though at first called an
imposture, proved on examination to be strictly true. But they embraced only the
first three degrees of Masonry. Other persons, disgusted and indignant at the
proceedings of their adhering brethren after the fate of Morgan was known to
them, voluntarily came forward and supplied all the remaining forms used in
America, and many of those which had been adopted in Europe. A considerable
number openly and voluntarily seceded from the Order. A meeting of such persons,
held at Le Roy, ended, as has been already stated, in a formal renunciation by
them of all their obligations. Here and there in other States the example was
followed by a few. There were more who silently seceded, having made up their
minds never again to visit a Lodge. Yet in spite of all this, in spite of the
earnest exhortation addressed to his brethren by Colonel W. L Stone, in a book
written by him to prevail upon them to dissolve the Lodges and Chapters and to
abandon Masonry altogether, it must be admitted that the great majority of the
Society remained equally unmoved by denunciation, flattery or prayer. Some had
the assurance publicly to deny the truth of all the allegations made against
Masonry, and further to affirm that they had never taken obligations as Masons
not compatible with their duties as citizens. Others,-and the most important of
these was Edward Livingston, then uniting with the possession of one of the
chief posts of responsibility in the general government, that of the highest
dignity in the Masonic hierarchy, made vacant by the death of Clinton,-deemed it
the part of wisdom to remain sullenly dumb, abstaining from all controversy, and
suffering the excitement against Masons to blow over and spend itself in vain.
In this spirit Mr. Livingston proceeded to deliver what he called an Address to
the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United States, upon the occasion of
his installation as General Grand High Priest. He recommended that all attacks
made upon the Order to which they belonged should be met with dignified silence;
as if dignified silence were not equally a resource for the most atrocious
criminal and for the most unspotted citizen. The charge as against Mr.
Livingston was surely worthy of some little consideration when connected with
the evidence already laid before the public to sustain it. It was neither more
nor less than this, that he, being Secretary of State of the United States, one
of the confidential advisers of the President, and moreover the reputed author
of a strong proclamation issued by the chief magistrate against those in danger
of falling into treasonable practices by their connection with South Carolina
nullification, was yet himself under secret obligations which required him to
conceal the evidence of all the offenses denounced in that state paper, provided
only that it should be communicated to him under the seal of Masonic confidence.
Not to answer such a charge as this, implied rather a doubt of the ability to do
so satisfactorily, than a perfect reliance upon the consciousness of innocence.
If Masonry was free from all the objections raised by its opponents, what more
effective step to establish its innocence than a simple statement of the truth?
If it was a valuable institution, worthy of preservation, surely the effort to
sustain it against injurious calumnies was worth making. Could it be supposed
that the unanimous testimony to the alleged character of the oaths, brought by
hundreds of respectable persons who had taken them but who now renounced them,
was to be discredited by the merely negative action of adhering Masons, however
individually respectable, or however exalted in position ? Considering the
precise nature of the difficulties by which they were surrounded, it is clear
that no defense could have been assumed by them, in its character more nugatory.
It manifested only the consciousness of wrong, combined with a dogged resolution
never to admit nor to retract it.

The address of Mr. Livingston, such as it was, proved the inciting cause of
the publication of a series of letters directed by Mr. Adams to him, which will
be found to make a part of the present volume. In these papers the argument
against the Masonic obligation, as the root of all the crimes committed in the
case of Morgan, was pushed with a force which carried conviction to the minds of
many persons at the time, and which seems even at this day scarcely to admit of
reply. Mr. Livingston himself made no attempt at rejoinder. This was the part of
discretion, for had he done so, there is little reason to doubt that Mr. Adams
would have fulfilled his promise when he said to him, " Had you ventured to
assume the defense of the Masonic oaths, obligations and penalties-had you
presumed to commit your name to the assertion that they can by any
possibility be reconciled to the laws of morality, of Christianity, or of the
land, I should have deemed it my duty to reply, and to have completed the
demonstration before God and man that they cannot."

The opportunity for a complete and overwhelming victory was thus denied to
Mr. Adams by the tacit secession from the field of Mr. Livingston. Yet the
effect of his letters was by no means trifling in many States. The moral power
of the opponents of Masonry visibly increased, and with it the earnestness of
their political hostility to those who practiced its rites. It showed itself in
the general election of State officers, both in New York and Pennsylvania, and
in the nomination of Mr. William Wirt as a candidate at the ensuing election for
the presidency of the United States, in opposition to General Jackson, the
incumbent, who was found to be a Freemason. Neither was Mr. Adams himself
suffered to remain disconnected with the movement of political opinions upon the
subject. A large convention of citizens of Massachusetts unanimously called upon
him to suffer his name to be used in the canvass for the office of Governor,
which took place in that State in the year 1833. Reluctant as he was to enter
into the arena, and to sacrifice his preference for the position in the House of
Representatives of the United States, which he then occupied, the nature of the
appeal made to him overcame all his scruples. The election took place. It
terminated in the failure to make choice of any person by the requisite
constitutional majority. The power of the party which had for a long time held
the control of the government of Massachusetts, and with which Mr. Adams had up
to this period co-operated, was broken under the effort to sustain Masonry
against him. Had he determined to persevere, it is quite uncertain what might
have been the consequences to the position of the Commonwealth. But it was not
his wish to press the matter beyond the point which a sense of duty dictated. No
sooner was it ascertained by the return of the votes that a continuance of the
contest in the Legislature of the State was to be the result of his adherence to
his position, than he determined to withdraw his name from the canvass. At the
same time that be took this step, he caused to be published an address to the
people of the Commonwealth, explaining his views of the connection between
Masonry and the politics of the country, and justifying himself from the charges
with which he had been most vehemently assailed. With this paper, the last in
the present volume, and the close of which is in a strain of eloquence which
alone should secure its preservation, Mr. Adams appears to have terminated his
public labors in opposition to secret obligations and to Freemasonry. But their
effects were soon afterwards made visible, by the adoption of laws prohibiting
the administration of extra-judicial oaths, by the voluntary dissolution of many
of the subordinate lodges, and by the tacit secession of a large number of
individual members. Indeed, such was the silence preserved for a long time
respecting the Institution, that its existence in Massachusetts might almost
have been questioned. The purposes for which the organized opposition had been
made, seemed so completely answered, that the motives for maintaining it were no
longer strongly felt. The current of public affairs soon afterwards took a new
turn. Anti-masonry gradually disappeared as an agent to effect changes in the
political aspect of the States, and the individuals who had associated
themselves in the movement, again joined the ordinary party organizations with
which they most nearly sympathized.

Thus it happened that Freemasonry, by cowering under the storm, saved itself
from the utter prostration which would have followed perseverance in the policy
of resistance. Years have passed away, and it again gives symptoms of
revivification. A new and kindred Institution has suddenly manifested an
extraordinary degree of development under the guise of benevolence. What the
precise nature of the obligations may be, which bind great numbers of citizens,
mostly young, active men, into this connection, has not yet been fully brought
to light. The: objects are stated to be charity and the rendering of mutual aid.
If these are all the purposes of the association, it cannot be otherwise than
meritorious. Yet it can scarcely be maintained that any unlimited pledge of
secrecy is essential to the successful execution of them. In a republican forte
of government, the only real and proper fraternity is the system of civil
society. To that, every member is bound to bow. The obligations which it imposes
need no veil of secrecy to cover them. Illustrated by the law of love enjoined
by the superior authority of the divine command, it marks out with distinctness
to each individual the paramount duty of charity, of benevolence and of mutual
aid and support. There can be, therefore, no good excuse for resorting to
smaller and narrower spheres for the invidious exercise of such virtues among
those who ought to stand upon a perfectly even footing, when the broad and
general one better answers to every useful and honorable exertion. The
disadvantages attending the formation of all associations connected by secret
obligations, no matter how harmless may be their appearance, are, first, that if
they have any effect at all, it is injurious to those who do not choose to join
them; secondly, that they substitute a private pledge of a doubtful nature to a
few who have no moral right to the preference, for a clear and well defined and
entirely proper one given to the many. In all similar cases, the tendency to
introduce objects of exertion in the smaller circle which conflict with those of
society at large, and which may sometimes even threaten its safety, is obvious.
It is the temptation presented to conspiracy which has made secret associations
the objects of denunciation by the monarchs of Europe. The same thing should at
all times render them marks for jealousy and distrust in republican States. They
threaten the harmony of the community wherever they are. The pledge of political
preference which was rapidly becoming engrafted upon the Masonic Institution in
the United States at the time of the Morgan excitement, and which had already
produced visible results in many of the smaller towns of New York and New
England, by unaccountably exalting some individuals to the depression of
neighbors equally worthy, furnishes a good illustration of the mode in which
social discord of the bitterest description may be made in the end to spring up.
In view of the possibility of this hazard, it would seem as if few could be
found, when once made sensible of the difficulty, willing deliberately to give
occasion to it.

It is confidently believed that in the materials of the present volume will
be found a solemn warning, conveyed by a voice in the feebleness of age still
powerful over the sympathy of American citizens, against the formation of secret
obligations. As time rolls on in its swift career, and as the generation which
nursed the infant Republic into strength disappears from the scene, the duty
becomes stronger on those who succeed, to heed the counsels which its wisest and
most experienced men leave behind them. The arguments of Mr. Adams, although
directed against the particular Order of Freemasonry, will yet be found
susceptible of broader application, and extending themselves over all societies
of which the radical error is, that they shun the light of day. The pride of
freemen,- living under a system of equal laws, with guarantees of the rights of
each individual,-should be to sustain the junction of innocence with liberty,
the union of an open, honest heart with an efficient and liberal hand. Such a
state cannot co-exist with secret obligations. The person who lies under an
engagement which he must not reveal, whatever may betide, can indeed be innocent
and energetic, but he will not be perfectly frank nor just to all men alike.
Occasions may arise in which his fidelity to his private pledges will come into
conflict with his duty to society. Who is then to decide for him what he must
do? On either side is moral difficulty and mental distress. If he betray his
associates, he spots his heart with violated faith. If he desert his country, he
fails in a duty of even higher obligation. The alternative is too painful to a
conscientious spirit ever knowingly to be hazarded with propriety. That such an
alternative is by no means impossible, who cart doubt after the cases of Eli
Bruce, of De Witt Clinton, and of Edward Livingston, in the Masonic history of
the murder of Morgan ? Much as he might regret it, what Freemason was there in
1826, who did not perceive at a glance that his pledge to his associates was to
conceal the crime and to shelter the criminal; whilst his duty to the State and
to Heaven, to disclose the guilt and to denounce the author, was written with a
sunbeam on his heart? And how many were there, who, instead of judging rightly
of the relative importance of the obligations, actually made themselves
accessories after the fact, by supplying the means of escape from justice to
their unworthy brethren? The damning evidence of this truth must remain in the
minds of men as long as Masonry shall endure. It may indeed be that other
associations will spring up which may be free from all the grossly objectionable
engagements of that institution. But who shall be secure against the intrusion
of evil when the portal stands invitingly open to its admission? Who shall be
able to protect himself against the designs of those of his associates to whom
he has given a secret control over his will? These are questions which every
citizen must answer for himself. It is with the design that he may have at hand
the means of acting understandingly, that the present volume is put forth. Young
persons, who are especially liable to be carried away by the fascination that
always attends mystery, are hereby furnished with an opportunity to weigh the
arguments of a powerful remonstrant against any secret steps. May they read,
weigh, and deeply ponder the words of wisdom, and may the effect of them be to
preserve them in the paths of Liberty, of Friendship, and of Faith,*

* Fidem, Libertatem, Amicitiam--the motto abbreviated from that
selected by his father, who found it in Tacitus, in the charge of the Emperor
Galba to Piso, on adopting him. The passage, as it stands in the original,
applicable to the temptations by which great place is always surrounded, is as
follows: "Fidem, liberatem, amicitiam, praecipua humani animi bona, tu quidem
eadem constantia retinebis: sed alii per obsequium imminuent."

early marked out by their adviser as the guides of his own career,
unencumbered by obligations which they fear to disclose, unembarrassed by
promises which they know not how conscientiously to perform !